Virtual patient simulator for skill training in dentistry and investigation of its effectiveness

Abstract

Diagnostic errors represent a significant source of harm throughout healthcare professions. Similarly, in dentistry, these could lead to missed diagnoses, wrong or unnecessary therapies, loss of patient trust, and even life-threatening complications. Therefore, it is important to enhance the cognitive and kinetic skills of healthcare professionals to minimize or avoid errors that could happen during patient management. However, in traditional in-class clinical settings, achieving optimum training could be limited due to the unavailability of an adequate number of clinical supervisors, fewer resources, lack of opportunities for detailed attention; constructive feedback and playback systems. In contrast, Virtual patient simulators, which are computerbased software programs provide a simulated environment where health professionals can practice, learn, and study various clinical scenarios and procedures repeatedly until the required skills are gained. Yet, such systems may lack realism and are not tailormade to support educational approaches such as problem-based learning with increased guided practice at a relatively low cost. Hence, this work proposes a web-based virtual patient simulator as a supportive tool to further help students to grow and advance the required diagnostic skills in a virtual environment. The system enables students to gather the patient’s medical history, conduct physical examinations, request and analyze laboratory and imaging tests and ultimately make informed diagnostic and treatment decisions. The performance of the system was compared with the traditional teaching method and statistical data demonstrated similar performance as with the traditional method.